


Lightning is God Striking You Down

by Capostrophe



Series: The Fear of God and Earwigs [2]
Category: Bread (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Cousins, Gen, Marriage, Origin Story, Step-parents, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 01:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14009535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capostrophe/pseuds/Capostrophe
Summary: Shifty is brought into the Boswell family against his will when his 'friendly soul' mother gets married.





	Lightning is God Striking You Down

**1966**

 

His Auntie Nellie said something once. Shifty hadn’t got anybody or anything in his life, she said, because everything he _had_ got belonged to someone else.

She mightn’t have been wrong there. Shifty had nothing of his own. Everything he wanted, he couldn’t have, whether because he couldn’t afford it, didn’t deserve it, or it wasn’t obtainable. And that had always made him feel incredibly deprived. Everyone walked around with nice things except him. It wasn’t fair that he was sitting around with nothing, because nothing was the only thing he could get without doing something wrong.

Even his mother didn’t belong to him. She belonged to whichever passing man took her fancy, flinging away her dignity and her autonomy at the drop of a hat, moulding herself to the whims of whichever ‘uncle’ was residing with them at the time, and Shifty found himself being dragged along, unwanted dead weight, read to by a variety of men clearly paying him attention only to appease his mother, clearly resenting the task and his existence.

They moved from town to town, his dearest Mam following whichever wanderer she wasn’t keen to let go of, living wherever he lived, and so Shifty found himself robbed of friends, of the chance to make proper connections before he was whisked away once more.

So what else could he do but learn to compensate? One day, his fingers started to twitch. He shifted in his seat. He shuffled closer to a stranger. And he slipped his hand into that stranger’s pocket and pulled out a gold pen.

The man didn’t notice, just went on reading his paper, and Shifty held the pen aloft with his chubby little fingers, then stuffed it into the pocket of his shorts and bounded away, marvelling at how incredibly easy the feat had been.

* * *

 

Nicking things fast becomes an easy way of appeasing the anger which boils up within him. It doesn’t make up for anything—the fact that he hasn’t really got a mother, the fact that he hasn’t really got a home (well, how can he, when they’re constantly moving from place to place, when half the places they live in belong to one of those confounded Uncles?), the fact that he hasn’t really got a whole lot of anything.

He cherishes his hoard, looking over the little tokens of his triumph, of his revenge on an unjust world—the newspaper from the man going down the street, the doll from the little girl over the road, who had cried to him in a misguided belief that he might know who’d taken it and help her recover it— a vast array of other trinkets, from biros to necklaces. It gives him a twisted sort of joy. If something irks him, if he feels alone, abused, ignored or lacking, then all he need do is reach out and take something, anything, and a smile will creep  back onto his face.

It goes on like this for long enough that he forgets life was any different. He’s not sure exactly when the name _Shifty_ catches on, who even started it, some sly comment from a hostile schoolmate about _that shifty one_ which soon spreads like wildfire, but he embraces it willingly. At least, if he’s Shifty, he’s somebody. _Liam_ sits at home, ignored, starting idly into the fireplace while his mother sits on yet another sailor’s knee, giggling and flirting and part of her, he’s sure, wishing he wasn’t in the way, that he wasn’t a roadblock on her path to a good time. _Shifty_ has a reputation. He’s not liked, particularly, but he’s _known_ , he’s _acknowledged_. Half the boys he interacts with wish they had the nerve to be him, the other half wish they had the nerve to stop him. It’s only a nickname, it’s not a particularly flattering one, but for once in his life, he’s earned something. That he means something in the world, even if it’s something negative.

He wears the name like a medal.

* * *

 

Things change when they move to England. Shifty’s never sure why they do in the first place. Perhaps his mother has finally gone through all the men in Ireland, is looking for new pastures.

For a while, everything stays the same.

And then comes the announcement, one day while he’s lying on the hearth rug counting a collection of stolen marbles he’s just acquired. And it all becomes clear why they’re here, why she dragged him off to a new country out of the blue.

_I’m getting married_.

Shifty leaps up in shock, his marbles skittering everywhere.

_I’m getting married,_ she says, as if it’s a perfectly normal thing for friendly souls to go around getting married. Friendly souls have a long trail of suitors in tow. Friendly souls move about a lot, with their sons constantly getting in their way.   Friendly souls don’t _settle down._

In _Livepool._

 With a _husband_.

Except, apparently, they do. Shifty is eight years old when his surname is changed against his will from McCrory to Boswell and he’s dragged to Liverpool to meet his stepfather and start yet another new life.

Having a stepfather, he soon discovers, is worse than having an uncle.

Uncles spoil him, shower him with attention to try and get on his mother’s good side. When uncles come round, he always gets a piece of the chocolate ginger they bring her, occasionally a toffee apple or a packet of sweets of his own or a shiny penny, he’s complimented in oily words, taken on outings and patted on the head and proclaimed a ‘sweet little lad’ (even when he’s taken at least two personal items from the bloke’s pockets by the end of the day.)  Having a stepfather means he’s shouted at and disciplined, made to ‘earn his keep’ by doing the dishes, told to dress ‘respectably’ and actually get his school work done and respect his elders or else. For some reason, the man thinks he has the right to tell him what to do, and, more unforgivably, thinks he’s interested in listening to his boring seafaring stories.  Shifty avenges himself by taking the handkerchief from his pocket every single day, then taking and hiding the new packet of them his mother buys when he complains they’ve all gone missing. It doesn’t change anything, though.

After three weeks of being a stepson with a married mother and a horrendous stepfather, Shifty starts making paper dolls and writing the old man’s name on them, then tearing them up or putting them in a drawer, as he’s been informed will make the person die within a year. Unfortunately for him, he notices no change in the brute’s health. Well, voodoo is clearly another thing you can’t rely on.

As they haven’t got their own place yet (Shifty wonders if this will ever actually happen), they’re shoved into the spare rooms in a house belonging to his new stepfather’s…cousin’s…wife’s… parents—it’s too confusing for Shifty to keep up with, who’s related to who in what way, using a long list to describe a relative, so he simply calls their new landlords _Granny_ and _Grandad_ as all the kids next door do.

His mother decides she has found the perfect babysitter in ‘Auntie Nellie’ next door, and each morning he finds himself looking forward to being bundled up and shoved onto her doorstep, being let in by his ‘Aunt’ with a roll of her eyes and a quick Sign-of-the-Cross at his permanently scruffy state, being forced to mingle with her four annoying kids.

It’s chaotic. It’s awful. Shifty may have hated being ignored, back in the old days, but at least it was just him and his mother, and if his mam was out with one of her admirers, it was just him. He was used to that. Now he has other people to please, other people getting in his way, other people criticising him and telling him what to do and annoying him simply with their existence, and Shifty hates it.

He ponders running away.

He does more than ponder—he filches train timetables and extra money from his stepfather’s wallet, has a bag packed all the time, his stolen treasures in easy reach in case of the need for a quick getaway. He hasn’t been with his new family a week before he’s planned his getaway—or at least, has planned it insofar as he knows when is the best time to slip out the door unnoticed, the way to the station and which train he’s going to catch. Where he’ll go beyond that, where he’ll stay and how he’ll afford to live, he hasn’t considered much. He knows how to steal, he reasons. That’ll help him survive, somehow.

His friendly-traitorous-soul mother and his all-round-bastard stepfather are upstairs (and Shifty knows what they’re doing, and doesn’t care to think about it), his ‘grandparents’ are Heaven knows where, and Shifty sees this as his chance. He’ll be long gone before they even notice. And likely they will hardly care, will be glad, even. Shifty has always been in the way, a hindrance to others’ happiness.

He feels a strange emptiness as he tiptoes through the parlour, stumbling in the dark, because turning on the light would give the game away.

‘I did that once.’

Shifty jumps, knocking something over. He cringes at the noise, even though it’s all too obvious he’s already been rumbled.

‘Did what?’ he asks nervously.

‘Are you daft? What do you think? Ran away, that’s what.’

Shifty takes a step back towards the centre of the room, careful not to knock anything else.

Grandad doesn’t turn on the light. He sits there, an imperious silhouette in his chair, a light from outside reflecting off his glasses. There’s something spectral about him, which seems fitting, as Shifty is terrified. Grandad will prattle on, tut and sigh and then argue with Granny about the right way to bring up boys, and then his stepdad will get wind of the news from the bickering. And then, Shifty thinks, that’ll be the end of him. Or, at least, that’ll be the end of his whole two-day streak without any form of punishment.

‘I wasn’t running away,’ he lies automatically.

‘Then what are you doin’ sneakin’ off like this?!’ Grandad demands. ‘Walkin’ the canary? Stupid, that’s what you all think I am! Stupid!’

‘I was, er…you see…’ he’s good, normally, at bald-faced lies. They come as easily to him as stealing does, and oftentimes the two go hand in hand, the former necessary to cover up the latter. He usually has plenty of time to think them up, perfect them. But standing in front of Grandad, having been caught out unawares, he finds himself completely dumbfounded.

‘Bought a loaf of bread…lost the change, I did. Down a drain it went. So I ran away.’ It’s a story Shifty will hear many times as Grandad gets older, as will everyone else, no doubt, but the first time—this time—it serves a purpose. ‘You can’t run away forever. ‘Specially on no money. You’d starve.’

Of course Grandad would think of food. His Granny is constantly slapping his hand and telling him not to scoff his dinner, chiding him that he’ll give himself indigestion, and he, in return, sends back an _ooh, shut up, you silly cow_ across the table. The image comes to Shifty now, and it’s so inappropriate, given he’s likely in trouble, that he laughs in spite of himself.

‘It’s no laughing matter, you know. Nasty business, starving. Your body starts eating your muscles after a time. Then you go blind. I saw men go blind. In the war, you know.’

Shifty sees an opening to manoeuvre the conversation away from his present predicament.

‘Because they were starving?’ he asks, feigning interest.

‘No, you daft lad! Because they’d been shot in the ‘ead! One of the lads I knew lost an eye! Screamin’, he was. That’s what happens in wartime, you know. I got out with all me bits and pieces intact.’

In spite of himself, Shifty finds himself sitting down.

‘I wore a balaclava, you know. I don’t remember why, now. I’m not old, mind. I just don’t think of it. But it was there with me, through every battle and every freezin’ night I endured…yer Granny was unimpressed by it. Showed it to her, I did, when we met. She said it was a filthy piece of rubbish, all full of ‘oles by that time, and she bought me a new one. I never liked that new one.’

He isn’t quite sure how they got here, to talking about things wildly off-topic, but Shifty drinks in every word, unsure whether he’s genuinely interested or merely holding onto the fact that the longer Grandad keeps talking, the longer he can avoid trouble.

‘She’s a hard woman, yer Granny. Yeh’ve probably noticed that. A marvellous cook, though. Just eat and eat, you can.  Not like my daughter next door. I’d never eat _her_ muck unless I had to. No idea, she has. No idea.’

Shifty quite likes Auntie Nellie’s food himself, but he holds his tongue. Staying on Grandad’s good side, he realises, might keep him from telling his stepfather just what’s occurred. That man will look for any excuse to chastise him.

Grandad prattles on for at least another quarter of an hour, the topic changing from Granny to the Boswells next door to the cost of living going up. And Shifty finds, as he sits there, slowly becoming more and more entranced by the man’s words, that he has put his rucksack on the floor, that he has gone from clutching the train timetable to letting it lie crumpled beside him on the chair. He’s missed his train by now, he knows. He’s not panicking, though. He begins to volunteer questions, picks up on when to say silent, finds himself, in the span of less than half an hour, transitioning from despising Grandad, another member of a family he has no part in, to really…rather…sort of…liking him. He’s oddly cynical, bitter in an endearing way, a welcome change from the syrupy tones of the men out to get his mother’s favour or the belittling he receives from his mam’s husband—he speaks to Shifty like a grown-up, not some pesky fly everyone secretly wishes could be swatted away.

The light has moved slightly across the room when Grandad stops mid-sentence and peers at him.

 ‘You’re not going to go, are you? You’re the only one of this mad lot I can stand to be around.’

It’s Grandad that makes him change his mind about leaving, rip up his train timetable, get back into bed, decide maybe Liverpool is worth giving a chance. It’s Grandad that compels him to stay.

Him, and Joey Boswell.

* * *

 

Joey Boswell is one year older than him, but when he talks to Shifty, Shifty feels he’s being told off by a parent. Or an approximation of one, anyway, given a rosy-cheeked nine-year-old with missing teeth can’t exactly pull off that exact authoritative air that parents seem to have in-built. He’s a right pompous little prig, is Joey—a Mummy’s boy if ever Shifty saw one, who seems to think he’s in charge of him simply because he’s been put in charge of his own younger brothers and sisters.

‘You ought to clean yerself up a bit,’ he says firmly to Shifty on the day they meet, looking him up and down, and Shifty wants to smack him in the face, only he’s meant to be on his best behaviour and he doesn’t fancy a hiding from his heinous stepdad right now.

‘You ought to be locked up,’ says Joey, when Shifty shows off his stash of stolen treasures, and Shifty _does_ smack him in the face this time, because they’re upstairs in one of the boys’ bedrooms and there’s nobody else around to see it.

It’s too bad Joey immediately snitches and Shifty does get that hiding after all.

‘You don’t scare me,’ says Joey calmly, when Shifty returns to warn him he’s going to _get_ him for that.

Just to prove he’s not to be messed with, Shifty takes Joey’s precious stuffed dog from his bed that night and hides it in his own room at Grandad’s. That’ll teach him, bloody brat. Joey will wake up tomorrow and cry, and then he’ll know how Shifty feels every morning when he wakes up and realises all that awaits him is being ignored by his mother, being shouted at by his stepdad and being irritated by his ‘cousins.’ Feeling like something is missing.  Feeling like there's a hole in his chest.

Joey doesn’t cry, though. Joey, he soon discovers, is far too clever to let something like that get him down.

Shifty awakes to find his new cousin sitting on the foot of his bed, grinning cheekily, the stuffed dog in one hand and Shifty’s prized stolen pocket watch in the other.

‘What’re yeh doin’ with that?!’ he demands, lunging for him. Joey dances out the way, and Shifty realises he’s been tied up in his own sheets. Clever little bastard. He’s thought of everything.

'Give it!' he snarls. Oh, he's going to _kill_ Joey when he gets out of this. Nobody steals from him. He does the stealing. And nobody touches the pocket watch it took three attempts to nick, the watch that remains his biggest triumph to date. That's just crossing a line, that is.

‘Trade?’ says Joey, holding the watch just out of his reach. He holds the dog aloft in the other hand, weighing them up. When Shifty doesn't respond, Joey waves the watch in front of his nose and then quickly draws it back, reminding him just what's on the line. He's a good negotiator. That's something Shifty has never been all that good at, is negotiating. He operates stealthily and quietly, just takes what he wants on the sly. Joey fights for it. That, whether Shifty likes it or not, commands respect.

Shifty grumbles, nods at Joey and his treasure is deposited in his lap.

‘Cheers,’ Joey flashes a grin and disappears.

It's only when he moves to get up that Shifty realises Joey hasn't untied him.

He’s never met anyone who could outsmart him before. Shifty has always fancied himself the cleverest, most resourceful youngster there ever was. But Joey has not only foiled his plan, but got one over on him. No-one has ever done that.

Shifty decides he’s never loved anybody so much.

* * *

 

It takes a few false starts, and a few boring afternoons watching Joey boss around dull Jack and even duller Jimmy, but before a month is out, Shifty and the eldest Boswell are what he supposes would be called ‘friends.’ Perhaps, given they spend most of their time together, he could tentatively call them ‘best friends’—but as he’s never had any friend at all, let alone one he’d consider the best of them all, Shifty keeps the title to himself, brings it out in his mind and plays around with it when he’s alone.

He’d imagined, of course, that if he were to have a best friend, they’d be a rapscallion like him, a partner in crime.

What he gets instead, as it turns out, is an overly-pompous, bossy little bastard with a huge hypocritical streak. Joey tells off Jack and Jimmy, tells _on_ them to Auntie Nellie when need be, then turns around and lies his way out of his own petty misbehaviours, appearing proud of himself for having a ‘wicked side’ that to Shifty, quite frankly, is pathetic. Yes, Joey can be clever, and yes, Joey can steal his things in retaliation, but he’s got no dedication to being truly dodgy.

His dedication to his family, Shifty discovers, is truly something else.

And once Shifty is an established presence in the household, that family includes him, apparently. And while the afternoons with Jack and Jimmy are boring, school lunchtimes become enjoyable with a companion around, his homework becomes easier with Joey’s guidance. Even his treasures become more precious, because he can show them to Joey, watch the horrified look on his step-cousin’s face and get a whole new kick out of them.

They establish a routine without even realising they’re doing it. Joey hangs back for Shifty after school, his whining brothers waiting impatiently and kicking him as they head home, and though Shifty would rather walk alone, he appreciates Joey's attempt to keep him company.

They work for a while in the kitchen, then while Nellie prepares dinner, they sit out in the street on wicker chairs, imitating Grandad as long as he’s not around to notice, Shifty showing off the latest additions to his collection of stolen items.

‘This,’ Shifty is saying today, bringing out a penknife, ‘I got from that bloke in the next street. Easy to nick from, he was.’

‘ ‘Im from the docks with the limp?’

‘That’s the one.’

Joey’s face turns to horror. ‘You can’t steal from him!’

‘Ye can’t steal this, ye can’t steal that…’

‘He’s got a limp! He’s suffered enough!’

‘Suffered?! I only took a penknife!’

‘Put that away!’ Joey squeaks as Shifty flashes the first blade in demonstration. ‘You’re downright dangerous, you are, and with a knife you’ll probably end up in gaol for murder! I’d take that off you but I might get cut.’

‘And why would I cut ye? Why?’

Joey shakes his head, turns to his schoolwork, which he’s insisted on taking out into the street, despite Shifty’s protestations that this is leisure time.

‘Joeeeey!’

They’re interrupted as Joey’s sister Aveline toddles out onto the street. A pudgy little three year old with plastic bracelets all down her arms, she’s demanding, throws tantrums, and is probably, at this stage, Shifty’s least favourite of his new cousins.

Aveline pauses in front of them for a moment, pushing each of her bracelets down her arm as though counting on an abacus, then with the sudden recklessness of a small child, she flings them all to the floor and admires the resulting mess with glee.

Shifty ignores her. He’s got better things to do than encourage a toddler. Things, for example, like examining all the blades on his knew pocketknife, and trying out a few on the seams of his stepdad’s best jackets.

‘Joey!’

Joey is clearly in the middle of something, and Shifty waits for him to yell at his sister, the way he certainly would if a) _his_ sister interrupted him and b) he had a sister in the first place.

But Joey simply smiles.

‘Hey, you.’ He pats her ringlets and goes back to whatever dull sheet of sums he’s working on.

‘Joeeeeeeeeeeey! Up.’ Aveline isn’t giving up. She raises her chubby arms to him, and Joey sighs, puts his  school work  aside and leans forward, picking up the bangles from the ground.

‘You don’t ‘ave to look after her, ye know,’ Shifty says.

His cousin shrugs. ‘Someone ‘as to.’

‘Yeh’ve got a mam!’ Shifty explodes. He’s not having this, not when Auntie Nellie cooks and cleans and follows the kids around nagging them to get on with their homework and forcing them to eat everything on their plates and all the things mams do that his is too busy being a friendly soul to ever do.

‘Yeh, I know.’

‘And a dad.’ Unlike his ‘father,’ who will never be his father, his real father, a distant blur in his mother’s memory, and a miscellaneous array of blokes trouncing through his old front door, stuffing crystallised ginger into his gob to keep him quiet.

‘Sort of.’

Shifty scowls. ‘Sort of?!’

 ‘He’s not really here much,’ Joey says, gazing at nothing in particular as he talks. ‘He comes home for dinner and on the weekends and he does play football with us when he feels like it, but it’s not as if…it’s not…’ he chews on his lip. ‘ _I_ know more about Aveline than he does.’

Come to think of it, Shifty’s only seen his Uncle Freddie once or twice in all the time he’s been here. He’s an agreeable enough bloke, with a moustache Shifty can’t help be impressed by, but now he really thinks about it, no, Freddie Boswell isn’t really much of a father. Or around. Or helpful when he is around.

Hearing her name, Aveline’s face lights up, and she drops most of her bangle collection on the ground again in a bid to toddle over to her brother.

 ‘Up, Joey!’ she says, holding up her chubby arms, and Joey obliges, settling the child into his lap. The tiny girl squints at Shifty for a moment, seems to decide he’s not worth speaking to and commences playing with what appears to be one of Nellie’s necklaces, chattering absently to herself about ‘princesses’ and ‘stars’ and ‘beautiful ladies’ and a host of other little-girly words Shifty doesn’t care about.

Joey looks at Shifty as if this proves his point.

‘If someone asked her to pick her dad out in a crowd, she’d prob’ly point at me.’

And Shifty thinks that is the most stuck-up, conceited thing he has ever heard in his life, only, he realises as he watches his cousins for a moment, it’s probably true. Joey takes  a very serious interest in his siblings’ lives, and though he can’t claim to know much about it, not having any of his own, he’s sure most boys their age don’t invest this much into the task. At least this new revelation sort of makes sense of things, helps him understand _why_. If Uncle Freddie isn’t around, if Joey feels he _has_ to step into that role to make sure his siblings are taken care of, it explains why that determination to act like a parent towards _him_ exists. Joey thinks he hasn’t got a choice.

‘Where does he go? Your dad?’

Joey considers. ‘Down the docks sometimes. Mam says pub. Or a tart. Or lots of tarts. I hope not.’

He learns against the arm of the sofa, puts his head glumly in his hand. ‘I hope not.’

 ‘My mam’s one of those,’ Shifty says decisively.

‘One of what?’

‘A tart.’

‘That’s a _horrible_ thing to say!’ Joey would probably try and put him across his knee if Aveline wasn’t sitting there.

‘It’s true!’ Shifty shoots back. ‘That’s _why_ I don’t have a dad. She probably can’t remember which one he is. At least _you_ don’t have all those uncles’ names to remember! At least you don’t have strange men with disgusting-smelling cologne tryin’ to cosy up to _you_ just so they can climb into bed with your mother and—’

‘Shifty, don’t _talk_ like that!’ Joey scolds, his hands clapping over Aveline’s ears. Aveline’s eyes widen in surprise, and she tries to wriggle free. Joey holds her where she is, keeps his hands firmly in place, ignoring the whine of protest she starts up.

‘She doesn’t even understand!’

‘Neither should you, at your age!’

‘How could I not?! It goes on all the time in my house! What am I supposed to do, then? Pretend it doesn’t exist?!’ He doesn’t bother to point out that Joey can’t particularly call himself worldly-wise for twelve odd months’ more experience than him. _Your age_. Huh. He feels himself hating Joey again.

‘If you talk about that sort of thing in front of Aveline, I _will_ tell Mam.’

‘Oh, you’ll tell Mam, will you? Well, go on, then, go on! See if I care what she does to me!’

Joey stares him down.

Shifty stares back.

Aveline manages to free herself from Joey’s grasp and scowls at him.

‘No,’ she says, shaking a finger at him. ‘I don’t _like_ that.’

‘It’s for your own good, Princess,’ he says.

‘Why?’

‘Oh…no reason.’ He can’t seem to find the words to explain that _Shifty was doing something bad yet again_. ‘Why don’t you go and see what Jimmy and Jack are doin’?’

‘ ‘cause I want to stay here,’ Aveline says, confused.

‘No you don’t.’ Joey sets her down on her feet. ‘I heard Jack had bought some toffees with his pocket money…’

That has her running along. Joey watches her with an affection not entirely appropriate for his age.

‘You’re not her dad,’ Shifty says.

‘No, I’m not!’ His tone switches from cooing-Daddy to tetchy as soon as he turns back around. ‘But I’m her brother. I have to look _after_ her!’

Shifty thinks on it for a split second, and decides it’s not worth falling out over. Joey’s just as stupid as he is, in his own way. His Dad’s never around, in the same way Shifty’s Mam’s never around, and they’re just finding their own daft methods of compensating. At least Joey’s way won’t get him into any trouble.

‘You don’t have to look after everyone. _I_ don’t need looking after.’ Shifty reaches into his pocket, pulls out the marbles he’d taken off the boy down the road yesterday, holds them out as a peace offering.

‘Wanna play?’

Joey looks at the contents of his outstretched hand and sighs.

‘Oh, Shifty,’ he says, sounding old again, ‘You really do need lookin’ after.’

 

* * *

 

Though he’s not a fan of spending all his time in Auntie Nellie’s company, he has to admit she cooks better than his own mam. When they have dinner at Number 30, Shifty always chooses the seat next to Joey, partially so they can conspire and a large part so he has better access to the meat dish to pilfer from it.

Nellie serves each of her children in term, ignoring protests at being presented with food items they don’t like, then, with a glare at Shifty, plonks the worst of everything on his plate and slams it in front of him. Uncle Freddie has gone off somewhere again and she’s in a foul mood—not that she doesn’t seem to be in a foul mood most of the time anyway.

Shifty looks to his mam, hoping for some sort of defence, but she’s busy trying to not-so-obviously plant her hand on her husband’s leg.

There’s an audible groan from his left. Shifty glances over to find Joey’s nose turning up at two frankly perfect-looking slices of roast lamb. 

‘I didn’t want meat.’

Nellie pauses in the middle of serving herself  to give him a warning look.

‘You’ll eat what you’re given.’

‘It’s a baby sheep!’

‘Joey! That’s enough of this nonsense about animals! You’re eating your meat and that’s the end of it!’

Joey curls his lip.

‘PRAYERS!’ Nellie booms, and the little Boswells immediately clasp their hands together; even Aveline puts her braceleted little fists together and closes her eyes. Not Shifty, though. Afraid as he is of God’s wrath, he’s got an idea.

‘We thank Thee, O Father…’ Nellie begins imperiously, and Shifty springs into action, leaning over the table with a deftness he usually applies to stealing. It’s done before any of them have even noticed, and when Auntie Nellie utters the _Amen_ , Shifty is sitting there, hands folded like all the others, pretending to open his eyes for the first time since they began.

Nellie glances over at him and shakes her head.

‘Some people’s _greed_ ,’ she scoffs, and turns to her plate.

Shifty glances at his reflection in his glass. His cheeks bulge like a hamster. Oh well. He’ll let them think this is greed, if that’s what they want. He chews with difficulty, trying to navigate his mouth around the two slices of lamb he’s stuffed in all at once.

Beside him, Joey starts. Shifty daren’t look over, but he can imagine the surprise on Joey’s face to find his plate piled high with two servings of parsnips and his meat missing.

Shifty can’t help laughing to himself. Unfortunately, laughing to yourself with a large quantity of roast lamb in your mouth isn’t the best idea. He chokes, splutters and his face turns red as he frantically tries to gasp while keeping the lamb tucked firmly within his jaws.  The whole table’s attention is now on him, a mixture of amusement and disappointment being thrown his way.

Nellie stares at him with disapproval bordering on disdain.

‘You’ll get indigestion. Do you know what gluttony is?!’

Joey’s eyes meet his. His cousin smiles, and Shifty twists up the corners of his over-full mouth in return.

* * *

 

Shifty isn’t going to school today, he’s decided.

He’s never had much interest in the institution. It’s all tapioca puddings and no friends, compulsory tasks he cannot and doesn’t want to understand, being shouted at and being whacked and nothing worth anything to steal to compensate. It’s walking home with the Boswell children, listening to Jimmy whining, rubbing his bruised shins, because Jack invariably kicks them when he walks too slowly, being told off by Joey whether he’s done anything or not, because everyone assumes, of course, that he has. And to cap it all off, he then has to spend the afternoon in Number 28 alone, because at Nellie’s assistance, the Boswells all sit down at their kitchen table now and get on with their homework, Shifty banned as he's 'a bad influence', denied Joey's help, while nobody particularly cares if he does his or not—and more often than not, he doesn’t.

He doesn’t feel like all that today. It’s been ages since he actually _went_ anywhere, _did_ anything, felt like life was worth living. He feels like going down the docks and watching the water lap at the boats, seeing what’s good to pilfer from the new sweet shop in the high street, finding a patch of sun, if there is one, and just _basking_ , being free and unencumbered. He’s allowed that, he decides. It’s been a difficult few months adjusting to this life—in Kelsall Street, in Liverpool, in _England,_ with a new family—and he isn’t enjoying it. Grandad likes him; his stepfather doesn’t. Joey seems like a friend sometimes; at others, he’s enemy number one, quick to round on Shifty, dob him in, sacrifice Shifty’s hide to maintain his reputation as the golden child. Jack and Jimmy are wary of him, too under Auntie Nellie’s influence—and she wrote him off on day one as a bad lot and refuses to change her mind. Shifty has gone from being ignored to being antagonised with no escape, and it’s only fair, he decides, to do what he does best, and steal something to compensate. He’ll steal back some of the time he used to have to himself, spend a few glorious hours on his own, enjoying himself, away from disapproving eyes and near-constant judgement.

So when he leaves the house this morning, satchel slung over his shoulder, instead of going round the corner and up the street, he goes round the corner, down a backstreet, doubles back after he’s watched the others go past and on towards school without him, and heads off merrily towards the docks.

‘ _And_ what d’you think _you’re_ doin’, then?’

Shifty jumps, whirls around, and there’s Joey, sitting on a wall, swinging one foot back and forth as though he hasn’t a care in the world.

Shifty panics. Being dobbed in by Joey may as well be a death sentence, given what his stepdad will do when he finds out.

‘I could ask you the same thing!’ he splutters.

‘Same as you, I imagine.’ Joey grins. ‘Wagging. Bunkin’ off. Skivin’.’

Well he’ll be. Joey Boswell, pinnacle of all things noble, Mammy’s boy and obnoxious little snitch, playing truant. He doesn’t quite believe it.

‘Well, _technically_ ,’ Joey says, looking smug at having used a big word, ‘I’ve got ‘flu. Or will have had.’

Shifty frowns, uncomprehending. ‘Wha’?’

‘I have got a note after all. Little tip: never do anythin’ half-arsed. And never get caught. See? Brilliant.’

Joey seems to have been spouting a string of phrases that mean nothing, but when he passes  a crumpled piece of paper to Shifty, he suddenly understands.

It’s a sick  note. A genuine, actual sick note, excusing Joey from school today. It looks real. It can’t be, though. It just can’t.

He blinks, squints at it, but there’s no mistaking Nellie Boswell’s loopy handwriting.

‘Did your mam actually _agree_ to this?’ He finds that hard to believe. Nellie will administer half a disprin and march her children through the school gates no matter how much they complain of being ill, no matter how much they plead and bargain to be allowed to stay in bed. Only a flu of nearly pneumonic proportions could get them out of it—Jimmy had got bronchitis after sitting for ages in the rain trying to draw the clouds, while still recovering from a regular cold, and, Shifty had concluded, he would have hated to be in his cousin’s shoes. Being ill in this family, he has learned, doesn’t guarantee a rest—a couple of days off school isn’t worth being isolated, having Grandad’s disgusting home remedies shoved down one’s throat and being bundled up in a blanket and dragged to the doctor. There is no way Joey could have wheedled a sick note out of Nellie and be sat here, swinging his legs back and forth with vigour, his cheeks rosy, his eyes twinkling, absolutely, without a doubt, _well_. There isn’t so much as an ounce of sickness in his body.

Joey grins, takes the note back and hands Shifty a blue sheet of paper. He takes it, dumbfounded, and then it dawns on him what his cousin has done when he scrunches it in his hand and  finds his fingertips have turned blue.

_‘Carbon paper?!’_ Shifty says incredulously.

Joey winks.

Shifty snatches back the sick note and can’t believe he missed it the first time round—it’s not Nellie’s handwriting at all, it’s a _carbon copy_ of Nellie’s handwriting.

‘When did ye do that?!’ he demands.

‘When our Jack had ‘flu. I traced the real one when she was out the room. Always good to have a copy of these things, just in case, you know. It might come in handy…say…if I needed a day off school to get better…’

‘You’re not even sick!’

‘But,’ says Joey, ‘I might be. One day.’

 ‘You really think they’ll fall for that, do ye?’

‘ _You_ didn’t notice it was a copy.’

‘Yeah, but I…’ Shifty can’t really find a way to complete his argument, because Joey is right. It’s obvious now, but he wouldn’t have noticed had Joey not pointed it out to him. Joey is using a tactic Shifty himself employs when nicking things—if people aren’t expecting something, they don’t look too closely.

‘Told you. It’s all in the execution. That’s where you slip up.’

Shifty resents that. He knows more about execution than Joey, and _anyway…_

‘You have a go at me when _I_ do things like this!’

‘Yeah, _but_ ,’ Joey says, flicking the paper in Shifty’s face, ‘I don’t get caught.’

He’s got to admire that.

‘So what are we gonna do with our day off, then?’ Shifty asks. ‘ ‘Cause there’s this shop in the high street they say is easy to…’

‘C’mon,’ says Joey, grabbing him by the arm. ‘Let’s go down the docks. I wanna watch me Dad set sail.’

Joey might know how to _pull off_ a scheme, but his schemes are soft in comparison to Shifty’s. Shifty steals. Joey steals extra time with his dad.

Joey, for all his notions that secretly, on the inside, is a bit of a criminal in disguise as a moral citizen, is nothing of the kind. He hasn’t got it in him. He is a moral citizen pretending to be a criminal in disguise.

(And, as it turns out, he _does_ get caught after all. Shift has heard Nellie’s anger come through the walls, but this time, both houses shake from the force of it. Well, so much for Joey’s smugness that he never gets caught, too.)

(Years later, when Joey’s oh-so-sneaky number plate business gets rumbled by the tax  man, Shifty will think back to this incident and shake his head. And Joey tells _him_ he never learns.)

* * *

 

They’re doing their homework in front of the fire since Nellie's out and can't keep them apart, Shifty sore after his stepdad caught him bunking off school and pilfering from the Co-op, Joey sore after Aveline had thwacked him in the face with a plastic bead necklace, when Joey turns to him.

‘Why d’you do it?’

‘What?’

‘Steal things.’

A million answers run through Shifty’s head, one of which is the truth. He dismisses that one, picks another from his repertoire.

‘Why not? It’s a living, isn’t it?’

‘I want better for you.’

‘You worry about yer own self,’ Shifty snaps. ‘You just wanna be a better criminal than me, don’t ye? With yer barmy little schemes.  And then you turn and lecture me like you’re me dad. Make up yer mind which Joey ye wanna be.’

‘I can be both. And I don’t steal things, anyway. You wanna watch it. I won’t end up in gaol. You might.’ Joey turns back to his work, his pencil scratching the page in an irritating way that’s just begging for Shifty to steal his pencil.

Shifty seethes for a minute, twitches trying not to take Joey’s writing implement away from him, then looks from his cousin to his own work, filled with crossings-out and surely-wrong answers. Joey usually helps him. He puts his annoyance to the side, nudges Joey, pulls out a grin.

‘If you wanna make summat better of me, you could finish mine as well.’ He holds up his maths book hopefully.

‘Better if you do it yourself.’

‘Prig.’

Joey just grins at him and keeps on scribbling.

* * *

 

‘ ‘ey. Come ‘ere.’

Shifty scrambles up, not even caring he doesn’t know what Joey wants. Auntie Nellie is out shopping; he’s not sure where the others are, and Joey has him by the arm, dragging him towards the back garden.

‘Look.’

‘It’s a ladder.’

‘Yeah I _know_ ,’ Joey elbows him. ‘Me Dad left it there.’

‘So?’

‘When ‘e was checkin’ the roof tiles.’

‘So?’

Joey rolls his eyes.

‘ _So,_ let’s go!’

‘Up there? What for?’

Joey’s already three rungs up.

‘See the view I s’pose.’ He’s halfway up now, and it’s so typically Joey, this small act of rebellion for something as meaningless as appreciating a view, that Shifty, while usually annoyed by Joey’s petty attempts at wrongdoing, is suddenly overwhelmed with affection for him.

And, even though a part of him is assessing how difficult this climb is, in case he ever needs to use a ladder to assist him in stealing in the future, it’s this affection, this overwhelming feeling that he’s got a real friend, perhaps even a brother, in a way, that guides him to follow Joey up the ladder and onto the roof.

It is slightly terrifying, hoisting himself up onto the top of the house, seeing the distance down and knowing that one slip could end his life. It’s also exhilarating, and, Shifty has to admit, quite beautiful.

They can see for ages from here, the roofs sloping off towards the horizon, the Mersey in its dingy glory, dark clouds touching the tops of the tower blocks in the distance.

‘Great, isn’t it?’ Joey is leaning back against the roof as though falling is no risk at all, his hands behind his head.

‘Yeh. S’pose.’

Shifty slowly crawls over, settles beside him, fingers clawing at the tiles just in case he should slip. As he relaxes, though, and finds he’s quite firmly lodged, he allows himself to let go and rest his hands in his lap. With Liverpool spread out before him, and Joey beside him, Shifty feels…unstoppable. It’s the same feeling he gets when pulling a purse from a handbag and getting away with it—as if he matters in the world, as if the anger that often threatens to consume him is anchored at bay, and the waters are calm enough to keep it there.

They sit for a while, quiet but content as the dark clouds slowly inch closer.

A streak of lightning illuminates the sky, arrestingly beautiful. It’s stunning, and at a safe distance, perfectly harmless, yet it unnerves Shifty. He turns to Joey, nudges him.

 ‘Mam said if you lie God’ll strike you down. Sometimes,’ Shifty confides, lowering his voice as if he’s worried God is listening in, ‘I think storms are ‘im coming for me. Lightning, you know.’

‘I lie sometimes,’ Joey says. He’s the only person Shifty knows who could come out with a comment like that and still sound angelic. ‘He’s never got me yet. Maybe ‘strike you down’ means somethin’ different, and storms are just…storms.’

Makes sense, in a rubbish ten-year-old sort of way, but Shifty isn’t entirely convinced. Joey’s lies are probably smaller and whiter than his. Not to mention the fact that he hasn’t stolen anything.

‘I’m still frightened.’ If it were anyone but Joey, he’d have to threaten them to keep this quiet. With Joey...Shifty doesn’t even think about it. It comes easy, sharing things with him. Even more so than his own mother (though she’s too busy being friendly usually to listen), than Grandad. It’s as if Joey is the only person who can get him to open up his mind and scoop out thoughts.

‘Of lightning?’ Joey asks.

‘Of God.’

‘Oh.’ He ponders this for a while, trying to make sense of it, Shifty supposes. For a good little Catholic boy like Joey, with nothing more than the odd discrepancy, it doesn’t make sense to be afraid of a supreme authority figure. Even if he had the need to, Joey’s could probably charm his way back into the Book of Life. Shifty, though. Shifty is a bad little Catholic boy, with a criminal record longer than some convicts’. He has every reason to be afraid. Even now he looks to the sky, half-expecting himself to suddenly be punished for his sins.

He’s staring at the steelwool clouds, hoping he doesn’t suddenly get zapped by a thunderbolt, when he finds an arm around him.

‘What else are you scared of?’ Joey shuffles closer, almost leaning on him.

Shifty considers.

‘Earwigs.’

Joey laughs then, the echoing sound of it almost as loud as the approaching thunder.

‘They eat yer brain!’ Shifty insists, but Joey just cackles even louder.

‘They do—all right, then, what are yeh afraid of?’

That shuts Joey up. ‘Er.’

‘What?! Eh?! Bet it’s not better than mine.’

‘Er…’ Joey says again, almost embarrassed. ‘Jellyfish.’

‘You’ve never even _seen_ a jellyfish!’ Shifty says incredulously.

‘But. I might do. One day.’

‘No one’s seen one! There’s nothin’ in the water round ‘ere but soot and sheaths.’

‘And what?’

Shifty decides he can’t be bothered to explain the facts of life to his sort-of cousin who’s one year older than him.

‘And knackers’ yards,’ says Joey.

‘Eh?’

‘Knackers’ yards scare me.’

‘We’ll go and burn ‘em all down, then,’ Shifty replies absently.

Joey gives him a horrified look.

‘Then the animals’d die.’

‘They’re gonna die anyway.’

‘That’s not the point.’

Shifty shakes his head. Joey’s points are obscure, sometimes. 

‘You wouldn’t do that,’ Joey says at length.

‘Eh?’

‘Burn down places. You’re a good person, really.’

‘Am I?’

Shifty has no idea where Joey gets this from. He’s never been a good person, nor has he really tried to be. But Joey insists upon it all the same.

‘Yeah,’ Joey sighs, shuffling closer.

And Shifty decides, though it’ll never be true, that if Joey is willing to think of him as ‘good’, he’ll take it. It’s nice to have someone think the best of him, for once.

They stay on the roof until the storm is almost upon them, and the rain has lashed them by the time they climb back through Shifty’s window.

Shifty’s hair is sopping, his clothes are drenched, and he’s probably going to get pneumonia, but he doesn’t care.

* * *

 

It doesn’t last long, his life in Kelsall Street.

Not many things in Shifty’s life last long.

His mother’s marriage implodes after nearly a year, as it was always going to. Relationships never last long with her—the call of friendliness and sailors is too strong. Shifty doesn’t care much about the loss of his stepfather. He never liked him anyway.

But when one loses a Boswell, it seems, they lose the entire Boswell family. His mother won’t stay in a house with relatives that aren’t really relatives, Nellie seems only too happy to support this arrangement, and despite the grumbles of Grandad, losing his new ‘favourite grandchild’ (Nellie hits the roof when she hears that), Shifty’s desperate pleas to stay settled in one place, and Joey’s ‘tactile’ arguments as to why Shifty and his mam should be allowed to remain next door (a ten-year-old’s tactile arguments aren’t particularly clever, though, despite what he may think), they’re leaving. Arrangements are made, boxes are packed.

Shifty spends the last night in his nearly-empty room at Grandad’s, staring forlornly at the small stack of boxes containing his belongings. Tomorrow he’ll be gone, and his life here, his new family, whom he’s begrudgingly started to like, and Joey—his only friend, his little partner in crime, only not so much of a criminal, Joey—will all be gone.

He can’t bear it.

When it gets late enough that he can be sure both families are asleep, Shifty slips out of the house, lets himself into Number 30, creeps up the stairs and into the children’s bedroom and climbs into Joey’s bed.

Joey is asleep, his mouth open as if to catch flies. Shifty elbows him.

‘Joey.’

‘Hmf.’

‘Joey!’

His cousin opens his eyes, squints through the darkness, and then glares at him.

‘Bog off.’

‘Well that’s nice.’

Joey groans. ‘It’s the middle of the night!’

‘It’s twelve.’

‘That _is_ the middle of the night.’

‘Well I can’t sleep.’

Joey hesitates, glances over at his siblings. They’re all out for the count. He turns back to Shifty, holds up the covers.

‘Get in.’

Shifty climbs in beside Joey, wincing as his cousin’s ice block feet come into contact with him.

‘You ever heard of socks?’

‘Eh?’

Shifty shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’

Something glints on the small chest of drawers beside Joey’s bed. As his cousin is rearranging the blankets, Shifty’s hand automatically makes a grab for it. Well, he’s going to be gone soon. Might as well get his kicks where he can. Joey will forgive him.

‘What’s wrong, then?’ Joey has turned back to him, the sleepiness slowly wearing off his face. That’s what Shifty loves about him, sometimes. He might make fun of it, but Joey’s determination to play protector to his siblings (and Shifty, now) means he’s quickly on the alert, ready to try and solve whatever problem comes his way.

He wants to spill it all out to Joey—how much he hates the idea of leaving, how much he wishes Auntie Nellie would despise him a little less and adopt him so he could stay here forever, how there’s probably no hope for him once he leaves Joey’s influence (not that there was much hope if he stayed, but there was a glimmer of possibility, and that was enough for him).

Instead, he skirts around it.

‘D’you ever worry about the future?’

Joey tilts his head back and looks toward the ceiling.

‘Yeah. I need to make a lot of money when I grow up. So’s I can look after me mam in her old age.’

Shifty snorts. ‘Most people wanna make money for _themselves_.’

‘I’ll own a chain of businesses,’ Joey says as if he hasn’t heard, ‘each one of ‘em successful.’

He notes that Joey hasn’t specified what _kind_ of businesses, nor, probably, does he even know what kind of businesses, but at least he has a plan. Shifty has never really planned further ahead than a week or two at a time. Right now, he can see nothing but tomorrow’s impending move. It’s never really hit him that one day he’s got to grow up and find a purpose.

‘What d’you think I’ll be?’ he asks, curious.

‘A pirate,’ Joey says without hesitation. ‘You’re already good at plundering ‘nall that.’

‘I don’t plunder.’

‘Yeah? Whatcha take off me bedside table just now?’

Shifty swallows. How did he know? Nothing escapes Joey’s watchful eye; it’s frightening. He must have some kind of ESP.

‘Just…20p,’ he says guiltily, feeling his stomach turn. He’d wanted to keep that quiet, steal it away, but no point in lying to Joey. He never falls for it.

His cousin holds out his hand. ‘Give it.’

Shifty sighs, drops it into his waiting palm. Joey’s fingers close around it momentarily, and then he sighs, shakes his head, opens his digits and holds it out again.

‘Take it.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’m _giving_ it to you,’ Joey insists. There’s a note of frustration in his voice; Shifty can’t tell why.

‘Don’t want it now.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Joey prises Shifty’s hand open and presses the coin into it. ‘I wouldn’t have begrudged you it. I just don’t want you takin’ it without askin’. You can ‘ave it if you let me give it yer.’

Shifty doesn’t know what to say to that. He’d done wrong, snatched his cousin’s possession—and not for the first time, not even close—and Joey has not only granted him clemency but offered him the money as well.

He turns the coin over in his hand. It’s slimy in that awful way coins get when held in a sweaty palm, though whether it’s his sweat or Joey’s he couldn’t say. It leaves a disgusting metallic smell behind on his hand when he relocates it to his pocket.

‘Joey,’ he says, rubbing his hands together, ‘why d’you bother?’

‘Umf?’ he realises Joey is dozing off. He shoves him.

‘ _Joey_. Why d’you bother?’

‘Bother with what?’

‘Tryin’ to make me a good person. Givin’ me things so I don’t take ‘em. It doesn’t matter, you know.’

‘Why d’ya think it doesn’t?’

‘There’s no point, is there? I’m a bad lot. Everyone says so. I’m rubbish. I’m never gonna be a good person.’

‘Course you are.’

‘I’m only good as long as you make me. And that’s gonna change, isn’t it?’ Shifty’s found an opening to get into talking about what’s on his mind. And about time. All this generosity stuff has pushed them along on a tangent for far too long.

‘Why would it?’

‘Well, when me mother gets settled in the new place, and finds some new Uncle to be friendly with—and she will, she will—well, I won’t see you as much anymore. I might not see ye ever again.’ He’s nine years old—far too old for tears, he thinks, and he doesn’t usually shed them anyway—but one still comes, still threatens to leak. He’s losing his one and only real friend. It’s just not fair.

Joey turns his head and smiles that cheeky smile through the darkness.

'What makes you think you're gettin' away that easily?'

‘Well…’

'You think I'd give up on yer because you moved away?'

'I won't see you as often,’ he repeats.

'Says who?'

‘ _Well_. For starters, we won’t be next door to each other anymore. I won’t be poppin’ round to outstay my welcome with Auntie Nellie while Mam and Boswell man…’

‘Uncle—’ Joey begins sternly, but is cut off.

‘My not-father, have time to themselves to…’

‘Not in front of the children!’

‘The “children” are all asleep,’ Shifty says testily. ‘And anyway, you’re still a kid yerself. Don’t go talkin' about “the children” as if you’re their dad.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Joey shifts closer, elbows him. ‘ _Anyway_. Back to what we were _talking about_. I’ll still see yer, won’t I? We’ll find a way. You write me tellin’ me where you’re livin’ and we’ll go from there.’

‘And you’ll never write back.’ The hurt finds its way into his voice before Shifty can stop it. This is what happens. He starts to make friends, they move, he loses them. He’s used to it. Such is life. Losing Joey, however, is the worst kind of pain he could imagine. The only _real_ friend he’s ever had. The only person who’s cared enough to want better for him than to earn an infamous reputation stealing things. The only person who’s ever thought there might be more to him, that actually makes an effort to help him rather than abandoning him for too far gone. And soon he’ll be out of his life. People don’t keep in touch. It’s never happened once before. People are only in your life, he knows, while it’s convenient for them.

‘ _Shifty,_ ’ Joey sounds horrified, ‘I wouldn’t give up on yer! I’d _never_ give up on yer!’

‘What makes you different from any of the rest of ‘em?’ Shifty shakes his head. ‘Why would you bother to try and stay friends when it’s not easy for you?’

‘Be _cause_ ,’ he says through gritted teeth, ‘I don’t give up on people. Not them I care about.’

Shifty falls silent.

‘And eh,’ Joey adds. ‘You’re family, after all.’

‘Not really,’ Shifty says flatly.

Joey nudges him. ‘Fam-i-leeeeee!’ He insists. ‘Always. Even if you’re not related _exactly_ anymore. You’re family to me. You’re _my_  family. That doesn’t change.’

Joey stares at him so severely that Shifty doesn’t dare not believe him. Unsure exactly how to respond, a little overwhelmed, Shifty reaches out a hand, squeezes Joey’s shoulder.

‘You’re my best friend,’ he says softly. ‘Well. You’re my only friend. And, you know. It’s all been so much better since I met you and I wouldn’t want…’

‘Shifty?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up, will yer. I wanna sleep.’

Shifty, still overwhelmed by his cousin’s declaration of dedication, obliges Joey and does indeed shut up.

* * *

 

The morning comes far too quickly.

Before Shifty knows it, he’s sitting gloomily in his new, tiny, boxlike room, in his new, tiny, boxlike flat in his new, crowded, boxlike street, because they can’t afford nice things now there isn’t a man to take care of his mother (for now. He expects there will be a sailor on her doorstep in a week, and come a week’s time, there is indeed a sailor wearing a grin and sporting a bouquet of half-dead flowers).

He’s lost his family. He’s lost Joey, probably—even if Joey does keep his promise to write, it’s not the same. And what’s more, to add insult to injury, he’s lost his precious gold watch in the move. The most precious thing he’s ever stolen, gone, along with the most precious thing he ever had—his little family with Joey, and Jack and Jimmy and baby Aveline, and Granny and Grandad, even Auntie Nellie,  even though she didn’t like him. He supposes he stole them, in a way. They weren’t his family to keep, not really. They belonged to his stepfather, not him.

He still wants them, though. His or not, he still wants them.

* * *

 

The days pass agonisingly slowly. No letters come. He’s promised a trip to Kelsall Street, but his mam backs out at the last minute, and whether this is to avoid her ex-husband or because of a new lover on the scene Shifty can’t be certain.

He tries to write to Joey, but the words don’t flow, and he ends up tearing it up.

Shifty is sent to yet another school, puts in about half an hour and then finds new ways of truanting, so that in the course of a week he’s only graced the classroom for about forty-five minutes in total.

He steals. It’s lost its lustre, somewhat, now he’s experienced something better that he wants back, but he turns to it like an alcoholic to a bottle—greedily, desperately. For a brief moment, a new acquisition fills the hole inside him, but it never lasts. The hole seems to gape more than it used to, now he’s seen what he might have had.

His moods fade to black. Every day is a trial.

And then, one day, the mail falls through their letterbox, bearing with it a little parcel with Shifty’s name on.

A little parcel with Shifty’s name on and Joey’s handwriting on the front.

He can’t snatch it up fast enough. It’s off the mat and in Shifty’s room before his mother even has the chance to take one step towards the front door, and then he’s tearing at the paper, trying to preserve the section with Joey’s writing but allowing himself to pulverise the rest of it.

He pushes one finger inside while trying to rip it open with his teeth. The contents feel cold, metallic. He’s made a big enough hole now, tips the package upside down, shakes it…

….and a flash of something golden tumbles out onto the floor.

His gold watch.

The same gold watch Joey had stolen, on the day Shifty had first realised he’d met his match, on the day they’d become friends. The same gold watch he thought he’d lost in the move.

And Shifty knows what’s happened before he’s even turned his attention to the note sellotaped to the chain, and he knows why Joey’s done this, what he means to say by doing it.

He opens the note anyway, and reads it over and over again.

_Looking for something? Your move._

Shifty looks from the note to the watch in his palm and smiles.

 

 


End file.
